Motivational sayings for athletes

I got these from rec.sport.swimming some years ago. Can't remember who posted them. Of course, in a list this long, some of the sayings are just nonsense. But you can decide for yourself!

• Ability may take you to the top, but it takes character to stay there.
• Act as if it were impossible to fail and it will be.
• Actions speak louder than coaches. (Speedo ad)
• After you have done your best-your best may not be good enough.
• A little fish in a big pond can get to be a big fish in that pond, but a big fish in a little pond cannot get any better off.
• Always remember, whatever the goal--keep your eye on it.
• Attitudes are contagious. Are yours worth catching?
• A winner makes committments to a goal, a loser makes promises.
• A team which has become a winner has done so by certain individual setting and reaching goals for themselves.
• Attitudes are nothing more than habits of thought...and habits can be acquired.
• Bad times have a value, these are the times a good learner would not miss.
• Be consistently persistent. (Dick Hannula)
• Be satisfied with nothing but your best.
• Breastroke is an athletic event, butterfly is a political statement. (Paul Tsongas 3/20/92)
• Compete to compete.
• Common sense is very uncommon. (Horace Greely.)
• Defeat should never be a source of disappointment, but rather a fresh stimulus.
• Design a workout that even a fool can use and only a fool will use it.
• Desire + dedication + direction = Determined Destiny
• Doing a thing nearly right and doing it exactly right is usually the difference between success and failure.
• Do not be afraid of an honest effort and honest work; do not be aftaid of the truth. The surest way to succeed is to not fail.
• Do not dwell on your losses, but concntrate upon the part of your performance that limited your excellence.
• Don't count the days, make the days count.
• Don't try to make sense out of nonsense.
• Don't let anyone out-train you.
• Education is what you get from reading the fine print. Experience is what you get from not reading it.
• Everyone's a potential winner. Some people are disguised as losers though--Don't let their appearance fool you.
• Faith can move mountains, doubt can create them.
• Focus on your strong points when you visualize your race.
• Failure is often that early morning hour of darkness that precedes the dawning of the day of success.
• Go hard or go home. (Speedo Ad)
• Hard things are put in our way, not to stop us, but to call out our courage and strength.
• He who does not hope to win has already lost.
• Ideas never work unless you do.
• If you are good, be better.
• If you do not consciously form good habits, you will unconsciously form bad ones.
• If you give everything your best shot, you will come out on top no matter what the score.
• If you don't take the time to do it right - will you have the time to do it over?
• If you love life then do not waste time for that is what life is made of. (Ben Franklin)
• If the going seems easy, check to see if you are going downhill.
• Ink it, don't just think it.
• It's not how far you swim in practice; and its' not how fast you swim in practice--it's how far you swim fast in practice.
• It's not the best person that wins, it's the best trained person.
• It's better to have swum and lost than to never have swum at all. [or to have played basketball -ge]
• It doesn't take great men to do great things, it takes concentrated men. (No chauvinism intended.)
• It's what you have left after you give 100%.
• Leadership by example is the most difficult, but also the most beneficial.
• LEARN TO LOVE PAIN
• Losers let it happen, winners make it happen.
• Life's greatest adventure is in doing one's very best.
• Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
• Never sacrifice a principle for a temporary gain.
• Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal, nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude. (Thomas Jefferson.)
• Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.
• Only those risking to go far will ever know how far they can go.
• Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
• Practice is 90% physical-10% mental. Championship meets are 10% physical-90% mental.
• Pride, intense pride, that's what it all comes down to.
• Practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.
• People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they themselves discovered than by those which have come from others.
• People who feel good about themselves produce good results.
• Success does not rest. (Original.)
• Speed is the by-product of busting your ass.
• Swim each practice as if it was the most important practice of the year.
• Swimming is a sport, everything else is just a game.
• Swimmers who are willing to work out close to racing speed will ultimately swim faster when it counts.
• Take the best team and the worst team. Line them up and you would find very little physical difference. You would find an emotional difference. The winning team has a dedication--they won't accept defeat.
• Take all defeats as temporary setbacks.
• The road to success is always under construction.
• The minute you quit is the moment you fail.
• There is always room at the top.
• The swimmer who says, "It can't be done" is passed by the swimmer who is doing it.
• The will to win is not nearly so important as the will to prepare to win.
• The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work.
• The future belongs to those who prepare for it.
• The height of your success is determined by the depth of your belief.
• The harder your work, the luckier you get.
• The hardest thing about climbing the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom.
• The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond into the impossible.
• The real test in golf, as in life, is not keeping out of the rough, but getting out once you are in.
• The swimmer that makes the fewest mistakes wins.
• Trust your hopes, not your fears.
• The key to better swimming, is swimming better.
• There are going to be times when everything succeeds, but don't worry, it will pass.
• There is a big difference between wanting to and willing to.
• There is no substitute for hard work and effort beyond the call of mere duty. That is what strengthens the soul and one's character.
• The majority of failures in life are simply the victims of their mental defeats.
• That you may fail, is not sufficient reason for not trying.
• Tough times never last, but tough people do.
• We accomplish in proportion to what we attempt.
• We are successful precisely because we formed the habit of doing things that failures do not like to do.
• What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
• When you are behind, don't give up; when you are ahead, don't let up.
• Whether you think you can or can't, your're right.
• Why strive for mediocrity?
• Winning isn't everything, but trying to is.
• Winners are workers.
• Winners make goals, losers make excuses.
• A winner solves his problems, but a loser is defeated by his.
• Winning can be defined as the science of being totally prepared. I define prepartation in three words: leave nothing undone.
• Winning is seeing improvement in yourself.
• Work hard -- rest hard.
• Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
• Winners make it happen -- losers let it happen.
• Win or lose, playing at all is winning.
• You can motivate by fear and reward, but these are temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation.
• Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have. Spend it wisely.
• You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it however.
• You can always better your best.
• You can't do anything by doing nothing.
• You create your own luck.
• You get good at what you practice.
• You need to compete for something greater than the experience of simply winning.
• Your toughest opponent is in the mirror.